Friday, January 13, 2012

In South Africa the cliché, “truth is stranger than fiction”, is heard almost every day. More recently, the country has become so bizarre in its zealous pursuit of multiculturalism and affirmative action that some days one feels as if this must be another planet where normal terrestrial principles no longer apply.

As everyone knows, South Africa is the most Western and European country in Africa. The other day I was walking through the military museum in Johannesburg where tanks, cannons and aeroplanes are lovingly preserved, even German ones belonging to our former enemy in two world wars. South African military aircraft from the First World War onwards used to have the old Dutch “Prince flag” on the tail, the orange white and blue banner brought here by the father of our nation, the Dutchman Jan van Riebeeck who arrived on 6 April 1652.

We Afrikaners have therefore been living in this country as long as the Americans have in America. Like Americans, albeit on a smaller scale, we have been involved in European affairs and wars for hundreds of years. Until 1994, as the famous Harvard political scientist, Samuel P. Huntington, also observed, we imagined ourselves being “part of the West”.

Next to the war museum is an imposing sandstone memorial built by the British for their dead during the Anglo-Boer war of 1899-1902, causing a young man in our company to remark: “This could have been in Europe! It reminds me of the Brandenburg Gate.”

However, the coming to power of the ANC in our country has changed all that. We have one of the most anti-Western governments in the world, consistently voting with China, Africa and the Arab countries at the UN. Not only that, but people of European descent like Afrikaners or the English South Africans have been legally and otherwise defined as foreigners in their own country.

Whereas non-Western minorities in Europe or North America enjoy special privileges, protection and subsidies from taxpayers, exactly the converse applies in South Africa. We, the Western minority in our formerly Western country with its European architecture, laws and system of government, are being punished for not being truly African, really black. In the Orwellian terminology of the new government, we are the “non-designated group”. Designated people are blacks, coloureds (of mixed race) and Indians.

The myriad laws that place restrictions on whites represent the culmination of American affirmative action, which is also being applied in some European countries such as Britain and France. The difference is that whites are still the majority in most of the Western world. So the injustice of these affirmative-action laws - or “positive discrimination” as the French call it – only affect a minority of whites, unlike here where all whites have to bear it.

Many people in the world today wonder what it will be like for Europeans to become minorities in their own countries, given present demographic patterns. Recently in Japan more nappies were sold for the elderly than for babies and that day surely cannot be far off in Germany, Italy and many other European societies where the indigenous populations are set to age and decline.

South Africa today represents a laboratory for a future world, predicted by UN demographers, in which whites will find themselves in the minority in most countries. That future planet in which Africans will number two billion and Europeans less than 500 000 will come soon, in about 30 to 40 years.

For one thing, it will be world of racial quotas, as in South Africa. Sports teams will only be allowed to have a small percentage of whites. Places at university will be limited for whites and there will be “racial verification” to make sure that people do not lie about their race when applying for university or for jobs in both the government and the corporate sector.

I predict this because a few weeks ago a student who had gained admission to the medical school of Stellenbosch University lost her place after it was ascertained that she was white and had mistakenly crossed the box for “coloured”. The Stellenbosch medical school reserves only 30% of all places for whites; the rest must go to the “designated groups”. The town of Stellenbosch was founded by our forebears in the seventeenth century and the university dates from the nineteenth. The university there was built, developed and funded by Afrikaners through their taxes and private donations. And yet today the children and grandchildren of Afrikaners are not allowed to study there or study there in large numbers, simply because they are of European descent.

Does that not seem like the ultimate irony? Or the grossest form of injustice, far grosser than, say, segregation as it existed in the American South or in many parts of British-colonial Africa including, of course, South Africa? After all, to study at a segregated university, as many blacks had to do in apartheid South Africa, was something of an insult, a kind of psychological wounding. On the other hand, to this day many American blacks prefer to study on their own at so-called “black colleges”.

At least the segregated student is still allowed to study. But under a system of affirmative action or racial preferences, such as exists in South Africa, many members of the white minority are excluded from education because the black majority must dominate in all fields, regardless of its talent, its performance or its merits.

South Africa is also the most violent peace-time country on earth. Seventy percent of all women are raped in their lifetimes. The murder rate is about 50 times that of Germany. In some parts of the country, such as downtown Johannesburg, the murder rate is 500 times that of Germany! It is routine to encounter people who have been attacked or have relatives who have been murdered, often in the cruellest manner possible. Children, even babies or toddlers are not spared, such as the two-year old Willemien Potgieter who was picked up by her hair, almost like a doll, and shot point-blank in the head by a black man. Her parents too were massacred in the town of Lindley, in the Free State.

Sometimes the media carry stories about such incidents, but generally they are likened to natural disasters that “simply happen”. And then life goes on.

South Africa is also extremely corrupt. According to a recent international survey, 56% of people who encountered state officials last year had to pay a bribe. The effects of corruption and government profligacy can be seen in clubs and bars, in luxury shops and on the streets of Johannesburg where tens of thousands of South African blacks parade their large, expensive German cars, supplied by Mercedes-Benz and BMW. Normally these cars are black too, as if there is some secret quota for car paint, as there exists elsewhere in society.

The burden of all this falls mainly on the white middle-class who strain under the costs of their security, education and high taxes meant to finance the ostentatious lifestyle of the ruling class.

Growing accustomed to the “new South Africa” is hard. If ever our system had to be extended world-wide, as seems likely to happen, we would have to talk about “a new earth”, a radically new planet where Europeans would have become a dwindling minority suffering discrimination and calumny, as well as random violent attacks.

........ poll is being managed by BudgetTravel.com . Please vote today & hopefully Beaufort will move into the top 3. You can vote once daily. Please pass this on to all of your friends! Here's the link.

Interesting in that the town where I went to military school won first place last year and now Beaufort is in the running here!

Paul Weston’s latest essay is the first of a three-part series about the deliberate destruction of British culture, and of Western Civilization itself.

How To Destroy A Country — Part 1by Paul Weston

“There is a revolution coming. It will not be like the revolutions of the past. It will originate with the individual and with culture, and will change the political structure only as its final act. It will not require violence to succeed, and it cannot be successfully resisted by violence. This is the revolution of the new generation.”

— Charles Reich. “The Greening of America.” 1970.

Every generation bemoans the slippage of standards and the “going to the dogs” of society, but history shows that civilisations and peoples really do collapse utterly. Some even become extinct. Great Britain, needless to say, is no longer as great as it once was, but has the degradation we see around us on a daily basis been caused by well-intentioned liberal stupidity, or by brilliantly-planned leftist malevolence?

Perhaps it is a mixture of both. It has long been known that the hard Left wished to transform the traditional Britain (and West) I was born into. Via a protracted campaign of brainwashing and propaganda they were able to recruit well intentioned liberals into an unknowing alliance. This was not particularly difficult, of course; liberals are easily duped by propagandised platitudes and fall very easily into Lenin’s denouncement of them as Useful Idiots.

But first, let us deal with some facts. During and after WWII the Soviet Communists gobbled up as much of Europe as they could. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia disappeared behind the Iron Curtain, followed by Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and East Germany. In essence, any country within Moscow’s military strike capability fell into its clutches and became part of the Soviet empire.

The Communists really did have global aspirations, so countries outside their military sphere were not simply ignored and written off, they were earmarked for destabilisation and subversion, to be taken over at a later date. The Kremlin office assigned this task was the Department of Agitation and Propaganda, which worked with Western Communist parties, including the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB).

Added to this subversive mix was what became known as the Frankfurt School, which wielded enormous social pressure — initially in America and subsequently in Britain — in the decades after the Second World War. It was established in Frankfurt in 1923 by the Hungarian Communist Georg Lukacs, and was known in those days as the Institution for Marxism.

Lukacs was an agent of The Communist International (Comintern) which had been established in Moscow in 1919 in order to “fight by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie for the creation of an international Soviet republic.”

Karl Marx wrote of the anarchy necessary as a precursor to outright revolution, in which he would “stand astride the wreckage a colossus.” Lukacs, whose reputation in the revolutionary world was almost on a par with Marx himself, said: “I saw the revolutionary destruction of society as the one and only solution. A worldwide overturning of values cannot take place without the annihilation of the old values and the creation of new ones by the revolutionaries.”

If you were a hand-wringing soft-on-crime looney liberal, a damned dirty hippie, you might say that the thread running through all of this is that the War on Drugs is dangerous, not marijuana.

But of course good Americans have listened to Nancy Reagan, listened to the nice DARE officers, listened to the decades of public officials exhorting us to win the War on Drugs, and they know the truth: it's marijuana that's dangerous.

The news scores for 2012 are not pretty. We have bad news, we have worse news, and we have worst news.

The bad news is that the score for the United States dropped from 77.8 to 76.3, which caused America to drop from 9th place to 10th place in the global rankings.

The worse news is that the U.S. dropped only one spot because other nations also adopted more statist policies. America would be in 12th place if Denmark and Bahrain simply maintained their positions from last year.

The worst news is that America’s decline is not just a one-year phenomenon. The chart shows how the U.S. has dropped from being a “free” nation to being a “mostly free” nation over a four-year period.

The clerk there told NewsChannel 36 Miller held the door for her as she came in. Miller apparently sat in his car and waited for her to leave. Surveillance cameras at the store show he followed her.

Police reports show Melton called her grandmother frightened, saying a man was following her. When her grandparents couldn’t reach her back, they went looking and found her car in a ditch, several miles from the store.

The car was still running and her purse was inside. Investigators went back to the store, found the video and put out a BOLO (be on the lookout) for Miller’s car.

They found it later that day and authorities say Miller told them he’d kidnapped Melton and sexually assaulted her. He also told them he beat her to death with the aluminum baseball bat that he found in his car.

Sheriff Matthews said, “I went out to the scene late last night – one of most brutal I’ve seen, she was badly beaten. It was pretty vicious.”

Matthews said Miller led the Chesterfield County sheriff to Melton’s body. They had to use a helicopter and infrared to find her because it was such a remote location.

The crimes took place in Kershaw and Chesterfield counties so the two agencies are working the case together.

Miller is charged with murder and will soon face sexual assault and kidnapping charges in both counties as well.

“Here’s the deal -- Solyndra is going to announce they are laying off 200 of their 1200 workers,” Heather Zichal, a White House adviser, wrote to Carol Browner, then director of the office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, and other officials on Oct. 27, 2010. “No es bueno.”

Obama Aides Knew Solyndra Planned 2010 Layoffs, E-Mails Show. What did they care? They weren't wasting their own money. These are people who believe that investing your own capital -- in private firms like, say, Bain Capital -- is borderline evil but investing wasting someone else's money (without their consent) is virtuous.

A woman said she stepped in to help de-escalate an argument on a TriMet bus when she was physically attacked herself.

Natasha Van Wormer was riding the bus through Southeast Portland on Thursday afternoon when she said a woman and her daughter tried to get on near 122nd and Division Street.

She said the two were arguing with the bus driver because the driver said they didn’t have the proper transfer. They refused to get off the bus and continued yelling.

When another passenger tried to help the bus driver, Van Wormer said the mother and daughter got up in his face and kept yelling.

Van Wormer was with her five-year-old son and saw he was getting scared, so she decided to step in and help break things up.

“So I stood up and was like ‘you know this doesn’t have to happen, you don’t have to keep yelling. Just calm down, go to the front of the bus like you were told and just listen. ’ (The daughter) came and got in my face,” she told KATU News. Listen to the emtional interview with Van Wormer

While the daughter was yelling, the mother came over and put her arm on Van Warmer’s throat, she said. In the scuffle that followed, Van Wormer lost a fingernail and suffered bruises on her arms, face and head.

Where do we go from here? If not to nuclear destruction, Americans must wake up. Football games, porn, and shopping malls are one thing. Survival of human life is another. Washington, that is, “representative government,” consists only of a few powerful vested interests. These private interests, not the American people, control the US government.

That is why nothing that the US government does benefits the American people.

The current crop of presidential contenders, except for Ron Paul, represent the controlling interests. War and financial fraud are the only remaining American Values.

Will Americans again give the sheen of “democracy” to rule by a few by participating in the coming rigged elections?

If you have to vote, vote for Ron Paul or for a more extreme third party candidate. Show that you do not support the lie that is the system.

Stop watching television. Stop reading newspapers. Stop spending money. When you do any of these things, you are supporting evil.

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), a former Army lieutenant colonel, sends THE WEEKLY STANDARD an email commenting on the Marines' video, and has given us permission to publish it.

“I have sat back and assessed the incident with the video of our Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. I do not recall any self-righteous indignation when our Delta snipers Shugart and Gordon had their bodies dragged through Mogadishu. Neither do I recall media outrage and condemnation of our Blackwater security contractors being killed, their bodies burned, and hung from a bridge in Fallujah.

“All these over-emotional pundits and armchair quarterbacks need to chill. Does anyone remember the two Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who were beheaded and gutted in Iraq?

Progressivism is at its core ideologically bankrupt.It is also the root cause of the sickness of this nation.By abandoning the principle of individual liberty in favor of a quest for a collectivist utopia,Progressivism has corrupted nearly everything this nation was founded upon.

Progressivism is a bipartisan disease,no party can claim sole ownership.Does it seem like this administration’s policies are the same as the last?Or the next? It is because they are the same.Intent on tearing down America as a bastion of freedom and liberty,full of intelligent, moral, independent citizens.

To be remade as a weak-kneed,impotent,dependent society of serfs with The State as god.Dictating every aspect of your life.What you may or must consume or purchase,what means of transportation you may employ,what seasonings you may use on what foods you are allowed to eat.What manner of lighting you may use in your home.Restricting your access to energy.Controlling what information is made available to you. All means of electronic communications listened to or read by prying eyes.Peace officers morphed into a standing army of Law Enforcement,enforcing the diktat of The State.Subjugation of individual liberty in the false promise of safety.Warrantless searches and seizures.Indefinite detention without legal recourse.Suppression of free speech.Denial of the right of self defense.Perpetual wars.Claimed authority over your very life.

All paid for by those not yet born.

Having long ago abandoned the use of reason or logic,the net result is failure on every front.Families in disarray,education in shambles,a populace terrified at every turn.Government out of control,finances on the brink of collapse.Truth nowhere to be found,for it is not in them.Their predictable answer is that is always the fault of someone else,because to accept any responsibility for their failure would be an acknowledgement of their ideological bankruptcy.

So they clamor for more,bigger,faster,in the blind arrogance that THIS time it will work if they just had the right people at the levers of power.Never acknowledging that the seed was foul,not the caretaker of the orchard.

And so the common people suffer from their social engineering,while the powerful live the high life,insulated from the consequences,intended and otherwise,of their actions.

All the while degrading the very nation that afforded them a standard of living that is unknown in recorded history,sucking the lifeblood out of the host like a parasite.

This will continue until it collapses under their dead weight,until the walls fall down.And then when the mask slips off,they will show their true colors.Powerhungry,ruthless,petty tyrants. Devoid of humility,charity or compassion. Anxious to rule,by lies,bribes,emotional blackmail,or naked force,if necessary.

BUT THEY INTEND TO RULE.

Democracy for them is but a stepping stone on the path to absolute power.Vote early,vote often.Which,if you’ve been paying attention,you already know.

BUT.

There are those in this land that will not be ruled.Not now,not ever.Those that will not be cowed into submission.

One of the downsides of having government education camps (the school system) "educate" most of us slaves is that most of us have no clue what occured prior to our own lifetimes. And what we think we know is incorrect or never happened.

Everything that is currently going on in the US... government "stimulus", massive deficits, pending bankruptcy and the use of the crisis to institute more government controls and blame the "free market" has already happened twice in the last century in the US. The following cartoon with the outline of the grand plan was printed in the Chicago Tribune in 1934, just after the first bankruptcy of the US Government in 1933.

In 2008, Research Institute for Global Change climate modeller James Annan and David Whitehouse, an astrophysicist who is a scientific advisor with the Global Warming Policy Foundation in Britain bet a £100 that, using the HadCrut3 data set, there would be no new global temperature record set by 2011. The HadCrut3 data set is put together by the Hadley Centre's Climatic Research Centre in Britain. The bet was made at the instigation of the BBC radio program "More or Less." The result?

Whitehouse has won.

Over at the GWPF website, Whitehouse offers his view on global temperature trends and his take on the bet:

After receiving a neighbor’s complaint about a disturbance, Haverhill police officers knocked on Hector Nunez’s door Saturday morning to investigate.

Nunez, who had just gotten home with his wife, asked who was knocking.

“They said, ‘police,’ and I thought it was my friend joking around,” he said in a phone interview with Photography is Not a Crime Wednesday night – 12 hours after I had posted the video of his encounter with police that left some questions unanswered.

Nunez, 23, opened the door and discovered it was, in fact, three police officers who began asking questions.

The cops were called by his downstairs neighbor, who is the building’s maintenance man and has had a long-running dispute with Nunez and his wife over repairs that were never done, he said.

The Nunez’s have already told them they’re moving out this month, so the landlord and maintenance man are not too happy about it.

So they call the cops at the slightest provocation. And in this instance, perhaps Nunez and his wife were a bit noisy as they walked up the stairs to their third-floor unit early Saturday morning.

This morning America received a dire warning from the Muslim Brotherhood, “If the United States continues meddling in Egypt, Libya and the Middle East, we will quit supplying 7-11 and Motel 6 managers. If this action does not provide sufficient results, cab drivers and call center personnel will be next.”

Then, in a rather harsh tone, the Muslim Brotherhood threatened, “And if all else fails, we will no longer send you Presidents.”

Somehow, maybe in a struggle to remove his helmet, Kent Potter lost his dog tag on a French battlefield in World War I.

Private Potter, who worked on an Army supply train that consisted mostly of mules and horses, survived the war and returned home to Kansas without the tag, which remained buried for more than 90 years.

At a ceremony hosted in the small town of Cottonwood Falls on Thursday, however, the worn, round metal tag finally landed back with the Potter family thanks to the efforts of two Frenchmen.

"I'm amazed that these two people in France still remember and appreciate what the United States did for their country," said Dale Potter, 75, the son and only child of Private Potter.

Twenty-one percent of his $2.4 to $5.5 million was in real estate, 14 percent in cash. He owns no bonds. Only 0.1 percent is invested in stocks, and Paul bought these "short," betting the price will plunge. Every other nickel is sunk into gold and silver mining companies.

Bernstein "had never seen such an extreme bet on economic catastrophe," said the Journal.

"This portfolio," said Bernstein, "is a half step away from a cellar-full of canned goods and 9-millimeter rounds."

"You can say this for Ron Paul," conceded the Journal. "In investing as in politics, (Paul) has the courage of his convictions."

Indeed, he does. Paul's investments mirror his belief that the empire of debt is coming down and Western governments will never repay — in dollars of the same value — what they have borrowed.

"The Rutherford Institute has come to the defense of a civil war heritage society that was prohibited from flying the Confederate flag despite the fact that other organizations were allowed to fly their flags. In filing a First Amendment lawsuit against the City of Lexington, Virginia, Institute attorneys allege that city officials exhibited hostility toward the Confederate flag and engaged in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination against the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) when they adopted an ordinance limiting use of the flag standards to the display of national, state and city flags. The complaint also alleges that the ordinance violates a 1993 federal court injunction which protects the SCV’s right to display the Confederate flag within the City of Lexington."

This brilliant book collects 50 short essays by Ron Paul on issues that range from abortion and assassination to unions and Zionism. It is no disparate assemblage, though; rather it is unified around a central theme, the vital importance of liberty. Paul's defense of liberty and opposition to its contemporary enemies put him at odds with all establishment politicians, both Republican and Democratic.

As he puts the point with characteristic force,

For more than 100 years, the dominant views that have influenced our politicians have undermined the principles of personal liberty and private property. The tragedy is these bad policies have had strong bipartisan support. There has been no real opposition to the steady increase in the size and scope of government. Democrats are largely and openly for government expansion, and if we were to judge the Republicans by their actions and not their rhetoric, we would come to much the same conclusion about them. (p. 20)

What exactly is the liberty that Paul favors? He makes clear at the book's start what he has in mind:

Confederate Civil War vessel H.L. Hunley, the world's first successful combat submarine when it sank a Union ship in 1864, was unveiled in full and unobstructed for the first time on Thursday, capping a decade of careful preservation.

"No one alive has ever seen the Hunley complete. We're going to see it today," said engineer John King as a crane at a Charleston conservation laboratory slowly lifted a massive steel truss covering the top of the submarine.

About 20 engineers and scientists applauded as they caught the first glimpse of the intact 42-foot-long narrow iron cylinder, which was raised from the ocean floor near Charleston more than a decade ago. The public will see the same view but in a water tank to keep it from rusting.

"It's like looking at the sub for the first time. It's like the end of a long night," said Paul Mardikian, senior conservator since 1999 of the project to raise, excavate and conserve the Hunley.

Two pro-gun conservatives recently announced they were running against Utah Senator Orrin Hatch.

This is welcome news for gun owners. In a Senate career that has lasted more than thirty five years, Hatch has not been a particularly good friend of the Second Amendment.

During negotiations over the 1986 McClure-Volkmer Firearms Owners Protection Act -- designed to protect gun owners from abuses of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms -- Hatch sat at the negotiating table next to officials of the ATF and argued against the pro-gun positions of Sen. Jim McClure.

Though a senior member of the Senate, Hatch did nothing to block camels-nose legislation slammed through by Republican leader Bob Dole in the late 1980s to regulate armor-piercing bullets and outlaw non-existent “plastic guns.”

As ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1993-4, Hatch refused to filibuster the Brady Law, even though it would have been possible to kill it.

He supported the 1996 Lautenberg amendment to impose a lifetime gun ban on people guilty of “domestic misdemeanors” – a term so amorphous that it could apply to spanking your kid or engaging in a verbal argument.

In the wake of the Columbine shooting, Hatch voted for amendments which would have effectively banned gun shows, made it more difficult to keep a loaded gun in your home for self-defense, and codified the Bush-era semi-auto import ban.

This package of legislation was stopped in a conference committee only after Hatch and others were pummeled relentlessly by tens of thousands of GOA activists.

In 2007, Hatch supported the Veterans Disarmament Act—which could strip the Second Amendment rights of honorably discharged veterans who seek professional counseling following traumatic wartime experiences.

Over the following two years, while GOA was working with pro-gun Senators to repeal the gun ban in national parks, Hatch voted against repeal before voting for it in 2009.

Sen. Hatch hasn’t exactly stood up to the Obama administration, either. He voted in favor of regulatory “czar” Cass Sunstein, who favors a ban on hunting and who would grant animals legal protections in court.

And, despite repeated pleas from GOA members, he voted to confirm Eric Holder as Attorney General. In addition to being mired in the Fast and Furious scandal, Holder was the point man on gun control for President Bill Clinton and is a vocal supporter of banning many semiautomatic firearms.

Thankfully, Orrin Hatch is facing a serious challenge in this year’s Republican convention.

Former State Senator Dan Liljenquist is a stalwart pro-gun conservative who understands the dangers of compromising with the likes of President Obama.

And State Rep. Chris Herrod also jumped in the race because, he said, “we don’t have much time to fix our challenges” as a nation. Both Herrod and Liljenquist are “A” rated on gun rights issues.

The candidates will face off in the state Republican convention in April. If no candidate receives more than 60 percent of the delegate votes, the top two vote-getters will run in a June primary.

Gun Owners of America welcomes the challenge to a Senator with a long history of compromising on Second Amendment rights.

A majority of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) officers under the Obama administration believe that their agency’s policy favors the promotion of immigration over national security, according to a 2011 survey conducted by the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) inspector general (IG). However, the director of the USCIS dismissed the data from the IG as anecdotal and not “fact-based.”

The government is all we ever wanted. It is the big brother, big Sis, big mother and father. It is now the place where we look to buy a car, get a school loan, etc. It is as Thomas Jefferson once said: A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take everything you have.

It is big enough to take everything we have, because it is big enough to take from us the most important aspect of US, it has taken the individuality, the innovation, the creation of the American. It has turned us into nothing other than subjects of a popularly elected government. It has turned its principles on its head and made us into a bunch of government dependent fools. Is this who we are? Is this what makes us run?

North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennialwww.ncwbts150.com"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial Commission"

North Carolina Patriots of ’61 – Lieutenant-Colonel William M. Parsley of New Hanover County

William Murdock Parsley was elected Captain of the Cape Fear Riflemen in April, 1861, a company he helped form in the fall of 1860. His father, banker Oscar G. Parsley, completely uniformed and equipped the unit out of his own pocket. Captain Parsley and his men were among those who occupied Fort Caswell at the mouth of the Cape Fear River after word reached Wilmington of President Buchanan’s “Star of the West” armed expedition against Fort Sumter in January, 1861. Local patriots feared that Northern seizure of Fort Caswell would seal off the port of Wilmington as the British had done during the Revolution.

In June, 1861 the Cape Fear Riflemen were ordered to Virginia as Company F, Third North Carolina Regiment and participated in the battles at Mechanicsville, Seven Days’, and Malvern Hill where Captain Parsley was severely wounded in the neck. He quickly returned to duty and fought in every battle of the regiment through Sharpsburg.

Promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel at the beginning of Lee’s Pennsylvania Campaign in 1863, he led the Third North Carolina in the successful assault up Culp’s Hill at Gettysburg on the third day. In that action, every officer of the old Cape Fear Riflemen was killed, and Parsley had received two slight wounds and a narrow escape with death by a glancing minie ball. Leading the regiment once again at Spotsylvania Court House in May 1864, Parsley was in the desperate hand-to-hand fighting at “Bloody Angle” and suffered capture, then sent to Fort Delaware.

From that confinement, he and fifty Southern officers were sent on the prison ship Dragon to Morris Island, South Carolina and placed as human shields in front of Northern batteries shelling civilians in Charleston. In addition to being exposed to the fire from their own compatriots, the officers were systematically starved with many dying of intestinal disorders brought on by scant and wormy rations. Parsley was one of the fortunate few who were exchanged in August, 1864, and returned to the Third North Carolina with a few recruits from Wilmington. In the engagement at Sailor’s Creek during the Army of Northern Virginia’s retreat to Appomattox, twenty-four year-old Lt-Col. Parsley was killed by a Northern sharpshooter’s minie ball, falling with his face to the enemy.

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul announced Thursday that he will return to the federal treasury $500,000 of his office budget that was not used.

Paul, a Republican from Bowling Green, is a staunch proponent of federal spending cuts, but he said many of his efforts to reduce spending through legislation have failed to pass Congress.

“This is the one thing I have control over,” Paul said during a news conference at the St. Matthews Community Center on Ten Pin Lane off of Shelbyville Road.

This month, Paul intends to propose legislation that would offer incentives to civil servants, such as bonuses, for doing something similar — leaving a portion of their budgets unspent, he said.

Such a plan could save federal money without cutting the services provided, Paul contends.

He said the savings came through judicious spending for office equipment, such as computers, and the hiring of his Senate staff.

He has 12 staff members in Kentucky and about 15 in Washington, D.C., which is similar to other U.S. senators, he said. Paul said his staff’s pay is also commensurate with the offices of other senators, but that his office has been frugal in making job and salary offers.

Paul said his staff has still managed to be active in preparing legislation and other tasks, despite his self-imposed spending limits.

It reinforces the point made by a newly elected Congressman who said that soldiers have to watch their back against JAG officers even more than an enemy that is trying to kill them.

Via Deborah

Merry Christmas to all Michael Behenna Supporters!

To the thousands of Michael Supporters,

God bless each of you. We have been in this fight together for the past two years and your encouragement and support has been the driving force behind all we have been able to accomplish. Last year, the Clemency Board gave Michael a reduction of 5 years off his 20 year sentence. On December 2nd we again pleaded Michael’s case before the Army Clemency Board. We pointed out to them that Michael’s sentence was 50% larger than the highest sentence given to any soldier convicted of unpremeditated murder in a combat zone. We also addressed Michael’s unblemished record in prison for the past two years, his many accomplishments while incarcerated, and his unblemished civilian record. We stressed that he was not a threat to anyone and offered many letters of reference including those from the Governor of Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Attorney General, Law Enforcement Agency Heads, and all of the supporters who took the time to write letters of support for Michael. In addition, the entire Oklahoma Congressional Delegation offered their support for Michael’s clemency. We also had three letters of immediate employment for Michael upon his release. After our arguments to the Clemency Board, the Board had no additional uncompleted factors for Michael, and the Chairman of the Clemency Board stated that Michael had “turned the corner.” Unfortunately, on December 22nd, Michael was notified that all of our efforts fell on deaf ears and he was denied even ONE day of clemency by the Clemency Board and the Secretary of the Army John McHugh. We have no idea why they denied Michael’s clemency request and can only surmise that the Secretary of the Army desires Michael to spend a substantial amount of time in prison.

in Washington, DC and was well attended by Michael’s family and a courtroom full of supporters who drove many hours to attend the hearing. In the Appeal’s Hearing the Army seemed to be taking a new position on the facts of the case. During Michael’s trial in February 2009 the crux of the entire case revolved around whether Ali Mansur was sitting and executed or standing and reaching for Michael’s gun. The Army prosecutor’s theory was that Michael executed Mansur while Mansur sat on a rock in a culvert. Michael’s testimony was that he was questioning Mansur in the culvert when Mansur stood up and lunged for his weapon. The Army prosecutors claimed Michael’s testimony was “impossible” and “self-serving” despite all the forensic evidence supporting Michael’s version (including their own expert witness who they sent home rather than have testify.) During the appeal’s hearing the Army seemed to back away from its original theory stating that even if Mansur was standing and reaching for Michael’s weapon Michael would still be guilty of murder because he lost his right to defend himself by pointing a loaded gun at Mansur. Telling a soldier that they lost their right to defend themselves in a war zone… against a known terrorist… is just plain crazy talk by people who have never been in harm’s way. It reinforces the point made by a newly elected Congressman who said that soldiers have to watch their back against JAG officers even more than an enemy that is trying to kill them. But the most disappointing thing we learned at the hearing was that a decision on Michael’s appeal could take as long as 15 months.

I promise you as we have promised Michael: we will never cease fighting for Michael’s freedom no matter how high or how hard the climb. When we spoke to Michael this week he wanted us to wish each of you a blessed Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year; and to let you know his spirit is as strong as ever because of all YOUR support – for that, we Thank You!

We appreciate the many letters to Michael inspiring him to fight through this ordeal. We encourage you to continue to write to him with your kind words of support (his prison address can be found on the website defendmichael.com.) Also please continue to write to your Congressmen and Senators to ensure that they are aware of your feelings about our government treating its enemies better than we treat our bravest heroes.

Here are some articles by two writers who attended the Appellate Hearing:

Dixieland Salvation Fund

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Southern Lady

Core Creek Militia

==============================My sixth great grandfather, his wife, and five of his six children were killed in battle with the Tuscarora Indians at Core Creek, NC.

The Seven Blackbirds

==============================My third great grandfather was an Ensign in the Revolutionary War, and saved his unit's flag after being wounded at the Battle of Brandywine. He was also at Kingston (Kinston), Wilmington, Charleston, Two Sisters and Augusta. He was at the defeat at Brier Creek and also Bee Creek.

Requiem Aeternam -
Eternal Rest Grant unto Them
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My second great grandfather was killed in action on May 3, 1863 at the Battle of Chancellorsville.
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My great grandfather and great uncle knew all the men in the "Civil War Requiem" video as they were part of the 53rd NC which was the sole unit defending Fort Mahone. (Fort Mahone was named "Fort Damnation" by the Yankees) *Handpicked men of the 53rd (My great grandfather was one of these) made the final, night assault at Petersburg in an attempt to break Grant's line. This was against Fort Stedman which was a few miles to the slight northeast. They initially succeeded, but reinforcements drove them back. This video is made from photographs which were taken the day after the 53rd evacuated the lines the night before to begin the retreat to Appomattox. I have many more pictures taken by the same photographer, one of these shows a 14 year old boy and the other is the famous picture of the blond, handsome soldier with his musket.
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*General Gordon promised the men a gold medal and 30 days leave if they accomplished their task and many years after the War my great grandfather wrote General Gordon, who was then governor of Georgia about this incident. They exchanged several letters which I have framed. See first link below.
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*The Attack On Fort Stedman
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"His Colored Friends"
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Lee's Surrender
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My Black NC Kinfolks
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Punished For Being Caught!

Great Grandfather Koonce

He was a drummer boy in the WBTS, survived the War only to die a few years later. He was caught in an ice storm on his way home, but instead of seeking shelter, continued on his horse until the end. His clothes had to be cut off and he died a few days later.

Thank you

I would just like you to know how so very glad I am that I found your blog. I have learned more history from you and the many links that you post than I have from reading all my history books. I can never thank you enough for the education you are freely giving me. It is priceless. And eye opening.

Many times I will not comment, but that does not mean I am not reading and learning.

You sir, are an educator. Thank you.

PhyllisWantage, NJ

Good morning Mr. Townsend,

Just to let you know I have finally finished that massive tome on General Lee. I never knew 1/10th of what a great man he was. No wonder the South is so proud of him! So sad that we have few men of his caliber today. We need them desperately. I have learned more history through you and your blog than I thought I could ever learn. I am very grateful to you. Thank you so much for taking time to answer my e-mail. And thank you for your blog and for opening my eyes.

PhyllisWantage, NJ

".......So good to hear from you! And also so pleased you are converting more of us Yankees! You have no idea how many people you have taught. And how many are so grateful to you for showing us the truth."

Your faithful friend,

Phylis

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I have also learned from Brock Townsend and two nurses lately, that appreciation expressed by someone for whom you have great respect overwhelms the lack of appreciation by some from whom you expect it. I believe that we cannot really know which small bit of help makes the life-saving difference. ﻿

I have learned more history from you than all the years I was supposed to be in school (and not out hunting or fishing).

==============================

I really must say, I like thousands of others have said, your blog is the best out there and with all of your history and experience, you should run for *president. I look forward to reading your blog every day and every day I learn from you. Thank you for the time you put into this effort .

refzip.com

http://refzip.com/

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